Technique for “phase locking” arrays of tiny lasers could lead to terahertz security scanners.

Terahertz radiation — the band of electromagnetic radiation between microwaves and visible light — has promising applications in security and medical diagnostics, but such devices will require the development of compact, low-power, high-quality terahertz lasers.

In this week’s issue of Nature Photonics, researchers at MIT and Sandia National Laboratories describe a new way to build terahertz lasers that could significantly reduce their power consumption and size, while also enabling them to emit tighter beams, a crucial requirement for most practical applications.

The work also represents a fundamentally new approach to laser design, which could have ramifications for visible-light lasers as well.

The researchers’ device is an array of 37 microfabricated lasers on a single chip. Its power requirements are so low because the radiation emitted by all of the lasers is “phase locked,” meaning that the troughs and crests of its waves are perfectly aligned. The device represents a fundamentally new way to phase-lock arrays of lasers.

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